- Daily Kos performs crazed self-immolation of credibility.
- Strategic oil reserves opened; economists fear major gas crisis.
- Some good news in light of lootings and price gouging and general displacement: Millions have been contributed in relief.
- Interesting info about Bush: “Bush cut short his working vacation in Texas by two days — even though aides have long contended that his duties are uninterrupted when he spends time at his ranch in nearby Crawford, which has White House-level communications capability.”
- Death toll in Miss. remains unknown.
- More info on Miss.: “A 30-foot (10-meter) storm surge in Mississippi wiped away 90 percent of the buildings along the coast at Biloxi and Gulfport.”
- Current estimate of people trapped in New Orleans: 80,000.
- More: Dozens of carjackings overnight, with people firing at rescue helicopters.
- The name of the oil company that will be receiving the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is unknown. Anybody have a good guess?
- In the Glenn Reynolds universe, you shoot first and ask questions later. Apparently, Reynolds doesn’t understand that a major disaster often causes people to resort to crazy behavior, both authorities and looters.
Katrina Headlines XXI
– August 31, 2005Posted in: Uncategorized
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Edward
Finally someone (as in the Washington Post) decided to take Jim Kunstler’s book Long Emergency seriously:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/30/AR2005083001655.html
$3 a gallon gas prices will do that, no?
I’m not sure of the logic behind your last bullet point regarding Reynolds. Am I missing something? It didn’t appear he was advocating indiscriminate shooting of looters. Did he in another post? (I don’t read him regualrly so maybe I missed it.)
Are you suggesting that a major disaster excuses ‘crazy behavior’ like acquiring a some DVDs or trying to loot a children’s hospital?
I’m not advocating that random looters be gunned down willy nilly – who could begrudge someone bread and water? – but martial law generally implies the use of lethal force (if necessary) to maintain social order. And when certain folks are attacking hospitals, firing on fireman and rescue personel etc etc I’d say some use of lethal force is warranted.
Um yeah, that was long. Like your blog though.
Dan: A fair argument. All I was saying was that people resort to crazy behavior in the face of a disaster and that indiscriminately shooting them struck me as a rather authoritarian notion that fails to take human nature into account.